


lessons in being human

by lilyshoneybee



Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: A little angst, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/F, Fluff, also there's a tw for homophobia??, the violence isn't really graphic but I thought I'd put the warning there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:00:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23683528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilyshoneybee/pseuds/lilyshoneybee
Summary: The human world, in all its complexity, is new to Hope. Luckily she has her new friend, Freya, to teach her lessons of human life. She has a lot to learn: that alcohol has an unpleasant taste at first, that humans so often speak in metaphors, that you shouldn't say that you've made pigs fly before. But there are bigger lessons, too, lessons that Freya cannot teach her. Elizabeth Saltzman can, though.Or, a study in love, morality, and what it means to be human.
Relationships: Hope Mikaelson/Lizzie Saltzman
Comments: 6
Kudos: 77





	lessons in being human

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this as my final piece for a writing class I took recently. Obviously the names were different and all, but now I've edited it a little to post here! Just wanna say there's a trigger warning for homophobia, and a little violence too. I hope you enjoy the fic, anyway! Please feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments!
> 
> (Obviously, in this fic, characters don't have their powers, and Hope isn't related to the Mikaelsons. Just go with it, you may find that it's worth it!)

“I feel like I’m corrupting you,” Freya chuckles, as she leads Hope into the building. Hope hangs back in the doorway, hesitant. Freya had told her that she was going to take her to the  _ pub _ . When Hope had mentioned this  _ pub _ to Hayley, her mother had laughed, and told her she wouldn’t last two seconds in there. She was probably right. “Come on. You’re with me. There’s nothing to be scared of.” 

Freya’s smile convinces Hope that she’s telling the truth. So with a deep breath -- how funny she finds it, to have to inhale air into her lungs in order to prevent the feeling that her chest was about to explode -- Hope steps into the  _ pub _ . 

Once in, she stands, twiddling her hands and looking. Around three edges of the room, up against the walls, are enclosed spaces, one large table and two benches in each. There are other tables, too, of varying sizes and shapes, in the middle of the room, and in totally open space. Some are taller, almost as tall as Hope herself. The chairs of these are tall too. Some of the tables are lower. Some square, some rectangular, some circle. The lighting is dim, there’s little colour to the room. Not the kind of place Hope would typically come to. 

“Anyway,” Freya speaks again, shocking Hope out of her thoughts, “if you wanna integrate into human society, this is a... a rite of passage, if you will. We’ve all gotta go through it.” 

_ Go through what? _ Hope frowns. 

There’s a counter along the fourth wall of the room. Behind it, what seems like hundreds and hundreds of bottles. There are stools, and a woman stood behind the counter, pouring blue liquid from a bottle into a glass, and handing it to someone stood there. The bottles do add some colour to the room, Hope supposes. Not that she’s sure of the point of them. 

Freya gestures for Hope to follow, and walks over to the counter, taking a seat on one of the stools. Hope scurries after her, hopping up onto a stool herself. 

“Hiya, Josie,” Freya greets the woman behind the counter, smiling brightly. The woman --  _ Josie _ \-- smiles back. 

“Freya, hi.” Josie has a tinge to her voice that Hope can’t quite place. She remembers that Hayley told her it was called an  _ accent _ . Hayley is so much more wise to the human world than Hope is. Sometimes, that gives Hope the most horrible clawing feeling at her stomach and throat. It makes her clench up, and she thinks it most unfair that Hayley should know all of this and she shouldn’t.  _ Envy _ , Freya said it was, when Hope had described the emotion to her in her confusion. Hope wondered why such an ugly emotion would have such a pretty name. “Who’s your friend? I haven’t seen her around before.” 

Freya looks to Hope, giving her a gentle, encouraging nudge. Hope sits up straight and clears her throat. She’s seen humans do that before, when they’re about to speak. 

“I’m Hope Andrea. But I usually just go by Hope, if you don’t mind,” Hope extends a hand as she introduces herself. That’s the right thing to do, she thinks. Josie nods, and takes Hope’s hand to shake it. Josie’s hands are a little damp. But there’s a kindness in her eyes and a warmth in her smile that Hope isn’t used to seeing in humans. She’s seen it in Freya’s, and in a few others, but there’s an absence of kindness in the eyes of most humans. She thinks that seeing the kindness in Josie’s eyes means she can be trusted.

“Hope, nice to meet you, I’m Josie.” 

Hope smiles nervously. She realises now that her own hands feel damp. That seems to happen to her a lot, since she became human at least. She wipes them on her jeans. Freya orders two of something called strawberry gin and lemonade. Hope isn’t sure what many of those words mean, but she knows she likes strawberries. 

Hope supposes that she might be a little too harsh with her  _ envy _ towards Hayley. It was hardly her mother’s fault that she had more experience of the human world than Hope had had before the two of them became human. That was due to ranking - Hayley was very high up, one of their boss’ favourites. Hope was just an apprentice at the time. Hayley had fallen in love with the human world, and with a human man, and that was why she took the decision to make a deal for both herself and Hope to become human themselves. She wasn’t really complaining about it, about becoming human that is; she hadn’t wanted the life that was set out for her anyway. Life as a demon was tough, and involved the kind of meddling in mortal life that Hope would never have been okay with. 

“Hope?”

She pulls herself out of her trance and glances over to Freya, catching her friend watching her, with her head tipped to one side, her eyes sparkling with something between amusement and fondness.

“Hey," Freya chuckles, “it’s okay. Relax. Let your hair down.” 

A little confused, Hope frowns and brings her hand up to the clip holding half of her red hair up – but before she can unclip it, Freya laughs, shaking her head. “Sorry, Hope. I should have been clearer. That’s a figure of speech.” Hope stares at her blankly. “A metaphor. It’s not meant literally.” 

“Oh.” 

Josie sets down two glasses. Hope studies hers. It’s large, filled with a pink liquid, and berries float towards the top. She takes a sip. The initial taste is sweet -- strawberries, she’d recognise that taste anywhere.. But there’s a sharpness in the aftertaste, the sensation of burning as the liquid slides down her throat. Hope coughs harshly. 

“Humans like this stuff?” She queries, wondering how anyone could stomach more than a few sips of it. Sure, the taste was nice enough at first, but she’s not sure it’s worth the bitterness or the sting.

“Some more than others. Some less so. Some drink for the wrong reasons, though, and then it can be dangerous. That’s why Rebekah never drinks anymore.” 

“Then how does she stay hydrated?” Rebekah is a nice girl, Hope thinks. She’d hate for her to be in danger, and humans need hydration.

Freya smiles. Hope frowns. 

“Drink in this kind of context relates directly to and only to alcohol. That’s what we’re drinking right now.” Freya always has a lot more patience than others in explaining what she means to Hope. Hope likes that. 

“Oh.” Hope pouts. “Why don’t humans ever say what they mean?” 

“Countless years of life on this planet, Hope, and I honestly could not tell you.” Freya takes a sip of her drink. “You’ll get used to the kick, by the way.” 

Hope takes a few more sips. The burn does seem to get less and less every time. Her tongue somehow feels fuzzy now. She definitely feels more relaxed. 

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you.” Hope turns to face Freya as she hears her speak. “How’ve you been getting on with everyone?” 

Hope screws up her nose in thought. 

“I like Rebekah, she’s really nice. And I think I will like Josie, too.” She scowls. “I don’t know what I think about Penelope. She’s mean sometimes. And I don’t think she likes to be told when she’s wrong.” 

Freya raises an eyebrow and scoffs. 

“Yeah, the day Penelope takes criticism is the day pigs fly.” 

“But I’ve made pigs fly before.” 

Freya blinks at Hope a few times. Maybe that was something else not to be taken literally. Another metamorphosis, or whatever it was Freya called it. 

\-- 

“You know, I’m not usually the kind to let random women pick up in a bar, but the fortune cookie I had today said that a beautiful, smart and loving person would come into my life soon, and who the hell am I to stand in the way of fate?” 

Elizabeth --  _ Lizzie _ , as Hope found out she prefers -- reaches for the glass in front of her (different to Hope’s -- it’s shallow and V-shaped, and a lot smaller) and pulls from it a little stick on which a cherry sits, red as the lipstick on Lizzie’s lips. Lizzie pulls the cherry off with her teeth. Hope can’t help but stare. Lizzie grins. “Actually, it just said that I really like Chinese food, but I thought the first thing was like, a lot smoother.” 

Hope laughs. Everything Lizzie has said so far seems to have made her laugh. She hasn’t experienced that before.

The blonde had approached the bar when Hope was on her third -- or fourth? -- glass of strawberry gin and lemonade (something she discovered she in fact  _ does _ like, very much so too). She’d stood beside Hope as she ordered her drink, something called a cherry martini. It was her voice that had grabbed Hope’s attention first. Silvery and sweet, it made a shiver run down Hope's spine in the most thrilling way imaginable. So she turned in the direction of the voice, and her breath caught in her throat at the utter beauty in front of her. She’d heard humans talk about beauty before, mainly from Freya when she spoke of her wife. And she knew how to recognise that a human was beautiful. She knew that Freya was beautiful, and Josie, and even Penelope, though she never liked to admit it. But she’d never looked upon someone and felt as though her breath had been taken away from her before. Not until the woman in front of her now.

“Hi,” she’d said before thinking, and she wonders now how much the four --  _ wait _ , maybe it was five? -- glasses of gin had come to play in her confidence. She wouldn’t come to regret it, though -- the woman turned to her, and Hope’s curious and inquisitive eyes met with Lizzie’s kind and wise eyes for the first time. 

“Hello.” 

And the rest, as Freya would later say, is history. 

Hope and Lizzie have been sat at one of those higher tables for a while now. Occasionally, Hope glances back to Freya, who chats away with Josie, and who winks at smirks at Hope whenever their eyes meet. Hope isn’t sure what the big deal is. That being said, she doesn’t quite know what it means to say she’s “picked up” Lizzie, who seemed to get up into her seat fine by herself. 

Lizzie tips her head to one side, her luscious blonde hair cascading down like a waterfall, and raises an eyebrow. 

“You alright there, love? Looks like you’ve gone onto Planet Hope,” she laughs, her nose scrunching up. The sound of her laugh makes Hope’s heart race. She never knew that could feel nice. 

“I was just thinking… about this seagull that keeps flying over my room,” Hope says, blurting out the first thing she thinks of, “sometimes I get worried it’ll pop up at my window and ask me to babysit its chicks or something.” 

There’s a moment’s silence as Lizzie looks at Hope. Then she laughs again. Hope notices that every time Lizzie laughs, her eyes -- the same colour as the sea-- glisten, laugh with her. Hope bites her lip. “Sorry. Was that weird? I know I can be a little weird.” 

“No, not at all. Actually, I find it kinda cute. Endearing, even.” 

Hope makes a note to look up what “endearing” means later. For now, she sits, looking at Lizzie, her heart thudding so hard that she feels it may burst from her chest. Hope remembers from a reading of human literature that one playwright had said that eyes are the windows to the soul. Looking into Lizzie’s eyes now, she realises what they meant. 

\-- 

They’re stood outside the pub now, in an alleyway out the back of it. Hope can’t work out why Lizzie wanted to move from the light of the pub, but she’d seemed pretty desperate, and Hope saw herself in no position to deny her. Maybe it’s a normal human ritual to be out of the public eye while you’re kissing. She remembers seeing a man and a woman kiss quite publically earlier, though, so she’s not sure why it should be different for herself and Lizzie. 

She questions Lizzie on the move, in a break from having Lizzie’s lips on hers. Lizzie frowns gently. 

“You didn’t see them?” she asks. 

“See who?” Hope looks over her shoulder, expecting to find someone or something stood there. Lizzie puts a hand on Hope’s cheek, turning her back to face her. She searches Hope’s eyes. Smiles softly. 

“Don’t worry about it.” 

Then Lizzie’s lips are on Hope’s again. Hope has seen plenty of humans do this before, mainly on television. She didn’t realise how good it was supposed to feel. It surprises her, too, how easily it comes to her to be able to reciprocate the kiss. She’s not surprised, now, that Hayley wanted to give up the demon life she loved so much to be with a human, if love or attraction, whichever comes first, feels this good. 

Hope is hauled from her thoughts, and Lizzie’s lips, as the back door of the pub crashes open, causing both women to start. Lizzie pushes Hope behind her as a group of humans spill out into the alley. Hope takes a brief look at them over Lizzie’s shoulder. Five or so of them, all of the male kind, a few years older than herself in human years. Her heart races again. But not in the nice way this time, no. This time it’s in the fear she’s so used to. 

“Aw, come on, don’t stop on our account!” One of the men, the one who was kissing the woman earlier, yells at them. His words aren’t clear. They seem to blur into one another, like they’re stumbling over one another as he and his friends had when they came out of the door. “Go on, kiss!” 

The others join in now, all howling that word, over and over again. Hope whimpers, moving to hide more behind Lizzie. Lizzie’s hand slides into Hope’s, and she squeezes gently. A small gesture, but one that cloakes Hope in a feeling of safety, anyway. 

“Oh, piss off, would you,” Lizzie scolds them, and though Hope knows she’s trying to sound scary, she’s sure she can detect an element of fear in her voice. “We’re not going to do anything for your pleasure.” 

Laughter erupts from the men. Hope always thought laughter was meant to be a joyous sound. But this isn’t, not at all. This makes her feel as though she may be sick. She’s experienced that once before. It was horrible, she wouldn’t like to experience it again.

“Don’t be such a spoilsport,” the same man says, “go on, give her a kiss!” His glare turns to Hope, who finds herself wishing that the ground would open up and swallow her whole. “You want that, right baby?” 

“Leave her alone.” Lizzie’s tone is harsher now, any trace of fear gone. She drops Hope’s hand, and steps towards the men. She points a finger at them. This is what humans do when warning or showing anger to someone, from what Hope remembers. “Fuck off, or I will not be held accountable for my actions.” 

The leader of the pack steps forward towards Lizzie, glowering at her with an expression of disgust and anger of an intensity that Hope has never seen before. She gasps. 

“Is that a threat?” The man’s growl is quiet, almost dangerously so. He and Lizzie stand with barely any distance between them. A feeling of dread claws its way into Hope’s throat. 

“Lizzie!” Her name bursts from Hope’s lips before she has time to think to stop it. The man glances to Hope briefly, then looks back to Lizzie, with a cruel, vicious grin creeping slowly across his lips. 

“Lizzie? That’s your name, huh? Tell me, Lizzie… what if my friends and I were to…” he clicks his tongue, “take care of your little girlfriend here?” 

The other men snigger. Once again, Hope finds herself absolutely clueless as to what they mean, but she’s sure it won’t be good. An icy fear shoots through her chest. 

“I told you to leave her  _ alone,  _ you fucking cretin!” Lizzie says the final word louder, unflinchingly, as she shoves the man back. Unexpecting of such an outburst, he stumbles back a few steps, and temporarily as stunned and dazed as Hope feels. Unfortunately, this is quick to fade as he regains his balance, and stares daggers once again at Lizzie, his eyes flashing fire. 

Everything is still, until it isn’t. 

And before Hope even has time to process what’s happening, the man raises his fist and strikes Lizzie, so hard that Hope can hear bone hitting bone. Lizzie cries out in pain, and now she stumbles backwards, clutching at her face. Hope catches hold of Lizzie as she reaches her. 

“Lizzie?” She asks, timidly. “Are you okay?” 

Hope gently pulls Lizzie’s hand from her face. Her lip’s cut, she bleeds from it. The pack are advancing on them again, and Lizzie isn’t able to answer before their leader begins to shout. 

“Don’t you dare do that to me ever again, you dirty little slag,” he roars, “you people disgust me. How  _ dare  _ you lay your hands on me!” 

Instinctively, Hope pushes Lizzie behind her, as Lizzie had done to her before. Something new is burning through her veins, giving her a boost of confidence enough to face  _ him  _ with the stoniest expression she can muster. 

“Stay away from her,” she warns, surprising herself by the calmness of her tone. The man raises an eyebrow. 

“Little mouse got a voice, huh? We’ll soon put an end to that.” 

Hope knows he’s about to hit her. She closes her eyes, waiting, bracing for the pain, as Lizzie whimpers, tugging at Hope’s arm -- 

“Hey!” 

Hope’s eyes fly open. This voice is new to the scene, but certainly not to her. And it’s the last voice she expected to hear. 

The men turn away from Hope, and Hope peers around them, in time to see none other than Penelope, the same Penelope she spoke about only a few hours ago, striding towards them; the stern, angry look that seems ever present upon her face. Her anger is directed to the leader of the men, glaring so hard that Hope expects she’s staring right into his very soul. “Back off, Ainsley.” 

The man, Aisnley it seems, crosses his arms across his chest. And then, he laughs, manically. 

“Well, isn’t this a nice surprise? I never took you for one to be against animal cruelty.” 

His friends screech like a pack of hyenas. Hope flinches. She feels Lizzie tense up and prepare to move forward again. She tightens her grip on her. 

“No, stay back,” she whispers. Lizzie meets her eyes. Then nods, reluctantly, moving ever closer to Hope. 

“Oh, you think you’re so funny, don’t you?” Penelope sneers, walking closer to Ainsley. “I think you’ve had enough fun for tonight.” 

“Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t,” he shrugs, “what’re you gonna do about it, anyway?” 

“I wonder what your boss would say if she knew you were out drinking with your little cronies on a night you called in sick?” Penelope simpers, in a honeyed voice. “I’m especially interested to know what she’d say if she knew that, beyond that, you’d punched a woman and caused her bodily harm when you were... totally unprovoked?” 

Every member of the pack is stunned into silence. Hope’s heartrate calms to its normal pace. This is a side to Penelope she’s never seen before. Maybe Hope was wrong about her. “I’m happy to give her a call, if you want to find out.” 

Ainsley looks from Penelope, to Hope and Lizzie. Then, defeated, he grits his teeth, gestures angrily for his friends to head back into the pub. Before leaving himself, he waves an angry finger in Penelope’s face. 

“This isn’t over.” 

“Oh, I’m sure it’s not.” 

He stares for a moment longer. Then, with a final look of disgust to Lizzie and Hope, he walks back into the pub. Hope feels as though something that had previously been sitting on her chest and been banished. Lizzie relaxes against her, too. 

“You girls okay?” Penelope approaches them, a look of concern in her eyes that stuns Hope. “I know it can be pretty rough when you go through something like that.” 

Closer now, Penelope notices the state of Lizzie’s lip. She narrows her eyes to examine, sucks in her breath. “You should get that checked out.” 

“It’s nothing,” Lizzie insists, her voice shaky and mild, “it doesn’t need stitches or anything.” 

Penelope hums, frowning. She clearly doesn’t believe this. Still, her attention turns to Hope. “What about you? You doing okay?” 

Hope’s forgotten how to form words. Instead, she just nods. Though she’s not sure how much she believes it herself. 

\-- 

Hope sits in her bedroom now. 2am, and she can’t sleep. Her mind is racing. Penelope and Freya brought her home about two hours ago, once she made sure Lizzie could get home safe. She’d asked them what she’d done wrong. Freya and Penelope looked at her as though she’d ripped their hearts out. 

“It was nothing you did, Hope,” Freya had explained gently, “Some humans just... don’t like it when other humans are… different to them.” 

“If you’re looking at relationships, for example, only one between a man and woman would be considered “normal”. So some bastards get their knickers in a twist when a man loves a man, or a woman loves a woman,” Penelope continued, bitterly. 

“And it doesn’t just stop there. It’s everywhere. People get like that over gender. Over skin colour. Over class, nationality, even age.” 

“It sucks. But not everyone’s like that. That’s what we’ve gotta hold on to. The good in the world.” 

Hope had been confused by that. The only hierarchy she’d known before had been between that of the ranks of demons. She wasn’t sure how to deal with prejudice such as this. How could people be so mean, just over the colour of someone’s skin, or what gender they were, or who they loved? No one seemed to care back home, your rank was based on how well you worked, or for how long you had been working. Maybe humans weren’t so great.

“How are you feeling, anyway? Is the tea helping?” Freya asked, reaching out to put a hand on Hope’s. The first thing she had done when they’d walked into the house was make Hope some tea. Apparently that was what humans did, when they had an upsetting experience. And Hope had to admit, there was a sort of comfort to it, though she wasn’t sure whether that was to do with the tea, or the kind gesture of it being made for her.

“Yes, I feel a little better.” Hope nodded. She was still shaken up, but nowhere near as bad as when it first happened. It was mainly the confusion bothering her, now. “But I think I’d like to go to bed now.”

“Of course. Go and get some rest. You might feel better in the morning.” Freya smiled sadly, and Penelope put a hand on Hope’s shoulder as she passed her on the way to the staircase.

Hope sits on her bed, mulling over the conversation, as she plays with the pink blanket on her bed. She doesn’t even feel close to sleep. Which proves to be a good thing, as there’s a knock at her window that she  _ definitely  _ would have missed had she been asleep. 

She stands, confused, and walks over to her window. Pulls back her curtain. And there, crouched on the small ledge outside her window, is Lizzie. Hope smiles, and without a moment’s hesitation, she opens the window. Lizzie climbs through it, perching on the windowsill. 

“Sorry. I know this is a total cliché.” Lizzie bites her lip, almost nervously. Hope isn’t sure what a cliché is, but she certainly doesn’t mind Lizzie being here. “I won’t stay long. I just had to see you.” 

“You don’t have to leave,” Hope’s words are breathless. It’s like Lizzie takes all the oxygen from her, in the best way possible. “Actually, I think I’d like it if you stayed.” 

Lizzie smirks at this, raising an eyebrow. 

“Oh, you would? Why’s that?” 

“Well, for some reason, I’m attracted to you.” Hope smiles, hoping Lizzie knows she’s teasing. Attraction comes before love. Hope had checked that with Freya. 

“Of course you are. Who isn’t?” Lizzie winks, and Hope feels as though her whole body has turned to liquid. Lizzie’s expression softens suddenly, and she tips her head to one side. “Are you okay? Those assholes didn’t upset you too much, did they?”

“I’m okay, I think. It was… upsetting, yes, but Freya and Penelope made me feel better. But are you okay? That really loud one, he hurt you.”

Her eyes find Lizzie’s lips. The cut doesn’t seem as bad as it did before, now the blood’s been cleared. 

“I’ve had worse. Cut lips are kinda sexy anyways, don’t you think?”

She looks back to Lizzie’s eyes. Her words are confusing, but Hope isn’t really focused on that. Her mind is only focusing on one thing. Something she wants to do.

“Do you think it’ll hurt if I kiss you?” 

And Lizzie pretends to think for a moment. 

“I like to think that pain is a part of life, myself.” 

A thrill runs down Hope’s spine. Lizzie pulls Hope towards her and kisses her. It’s a lot softer this time, a gentle tenderness to it. Lizzie is proof that there is good in the world, Hope thinks. More than that, she is the good in the world.

Maybe humans aren’t so bad, after all.


End file.
